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Updated: May 25, 2025
A week later, with Lola and Madame, I left Charing Cross and duly arrived in the old marble-built city of Pisa, with its Leaning Tower and its magnificent cathedral, and while my companions stayed at the Hôtel Victoria I went up the picturesque Valley of the Arno on the first stage of my quest.
The aspect of its nature, its sunny sky, its majestic storms, of the luxuriant vegetation of the country, and the noble marble-built cities, enchanted him. The sight of the works of art was full enjoyment and wonder. He had not studied pictures or statues before; he now did so with the eye of taste, that referred not to the rules of schools, but to those of Nature and truth.
As I turned a corner there came into view a large white summer-house with a domed roof, supported by columns a kind of temple such as one often finds in the gardens of ancient Italian villas. The marble-built summer-house, with carved escutcheons, was a fashion of the seventeenth century.
I was merely killing time in the faint hope that the good-natured Robertson might get for me the information which, in the circumstances, I was naturally most eager to obtain. In the course of my erratic wanderings through the grand old city, with its host of monuments of a glorious past, I was one morning passing the great marble-built cathedral and noticed a number of people entering.
Quickly the great iron-studded door was opened by an elderly Englishman in livery, to whom I gave my card, and asked to see his master. The man, without hesitation, ushered me through a huge marble-built hall, with a wonderfully frescoed ceiling, into a large room hung with priceless tapestry, and furnished with old gilt chairs covered with faded green silk damask.
The winter morning was sunny and brilliant with a clear blue sky, and as I drove through the streets, past the marble-built Duomo with its wonderful campanile, the city was agog, for it happened to be the Festa of the Befana. I had left my bag at the station, and the taxi took me to Fiesole, the high-up little town outside which lived the "rich Inglese" Oswald De Gex.
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